Big Dance Notes
By Bruce Marshall
Folks, this is more what an NCAA Tournament should look like!
After an alarming drop in mid-major qualification for the Big Dance in recent seasons, this year's Selection Committee ought to be applauded for standing up for the "little guys" a bit more than we have been seeing in recent campaigns, when the trend was to make room for the BCS-conference schools whenever possible. But the Committee took a deep breath on Selection Sunday and properly rewarded the likes of Utah State, UTEP, and the Mountain West Conference when making sure all were properly represented (and deservedly so) in the final NCAA field of 65. Indeed, with eight at-large bids this season (twice as many as a year ago, and the most since 2006), the mid-major ranks posted their first improvement in that category since 2004, ending a six-year run of decreasing representation in the Big Dance.
(Don't worry, we'll eventually get around to talking about the top-seeded teams that will likely comprise most if not all of the Final Four. But for the moment, it's a bit more interesting to talk about the extremities of the 65-team field!.)
Still, the composition of this year's at-large field has come under a lot of scrutiny from the talking heads at ESPN, who universally condemned the overall quality of this year's "bubble" and at-large ranks, which some (notably Jay Bilas) labeled as the "softest" in history. Perhaps Bilas and others have a point, but it's worth noting that we were all saying the same sorts of things a year ago when decrying the 2009 "bubble" as one of the softest in memory, too. By us, however, this year's Selection Sunday was not too different from most seasons, where there is always controversy for the final few spots in the Dance and where, as usual, candidates for the final at-large slots had various degrees of flaws on their respective resumes'. The difference this season is that the Selection Committee rewarded achievement (UTEP and Utah State both winning regular-season conference championships when finishing strongly before being upset in conference tourney finals) over some of the computer and strength-of-schedule arguments that had tipped the scales in favor of BCS-conference schools in recent years.
One thing we do agree about with Bilas and his ESPN comrades is the desire for the tournament not to expand anytime soon to 96 teams, which would further dilute an event that has been conducted smoothly at the 64/65-team level since 1985. Although the usual Selection Sunday discussions that quibble about the final at-large bids are really often much ado about nothing, because teams barely slipping into the tournament rarely make deep runs in March anyway, given that their shortcomings often put them in bubble trouble in the first place. But it's a function of any cut-off point that debate will rage over the final invited teams. In this year's 65-team field, we were wondering about the Big Dance-worthiness of the likes of UTEP, Utah State, Minnesota, Virginia Tech, and Florida; there would be similar cut-line debate in a 96-team field, which this season would have likely meant Bilas, Gottlieb, Katz, and Digger Phelps arguing the merits of Missouri State, Weber State, Wright State, and Portland. Which would undoubtedly excite Jay Bilas and his buddies at ESPN no end, although we're sure we'd get a kick out of Rece Davis asking Bob Knight about the relative merits of Wright State and Portland's Big Dance credentials.
And, in essence, we have something of a 300-plus team event right now, with practically every Division I team having a shot at Big Dance qualification through the conference tournaments. Although Knight and some other old-timers still believe the conference tourneys are a waste of time, we have begun to appreciate their place in the college hoop calendar. The fact the Big Dance isn't bloated beyond its current 65-team level makes many of these conference tourneys special, because the reward is so tangible. We think the college hoop landscape would lose one of its most colorful aspects if the conference tourneys were made obsolete by an expanded Big Dance. Although we're bracing for some significant changes on the horizon with the NCAA apparently seriously considering expanding the event, and opting out of its current tourney contract with CBS and re-opening the process to the highest bidder(s), which could result in an expanded Big Dance. And soon... stay tuned.
At least the Sunday discussion among the ESPN pundits was a bit more civilized than a year ago, when Bilas and Dick Vitale in particular engaged in a prickly discussion about mid-major representation (and Saint Mary's exclusion a year ago in particular, which angered Vitale no end). Dickie V's main gripe this season was about Virginia Tech and poor Seth Greenberg once again being cruelly denied a Big Dance bid (does the Committee have something against bald guys like Greenberg, or Vitale, for that matter? ), and the exclusions of Illinois and Mississippi State were also discussed by Bilas and others, but that's just typical Selection Sunday fare.
(Were we involved, we might have questioned Florida getting a nod over Mississippi State, which last weekend sure looked like one of the 65 best teams in the land, and one of the 34 best at-large entries. We also sometimes wonder if SEC commissioner Mike Slive seriously promotes his league's basketball interests outside of Kentucky's; the SEC Tourney at Nashville last week was a war, but the event did little to help the SEC's bubble teams, with Florida rewarded for an early KO and the Maroon left with only the NIT despite their gallant run to the final vs. UK. But it's nothing we're going to lose any sleep over.)
Although the tone of the ESPN discussions take on a slightly sharper edge when Doug Gottlieb and Andy Katz get on camera. We would suggest they both take a lesson from studio host Rece Davis, and analyst Hubert Davis, each of whom seeming to put the events of the day in their proper perspective, talking a cue along from the way from the late Al McGuire, who also exhorted his colleagues to "have a little fun" with the basketball proceedings. Gottlieb's snarkiness works better on his ESPN radio gigs than in the TV studio, where his commentary often borders on disrespect (ex-Dookie Jay Williams could have been excused for having a word or two with Gottlieb after the latter's ongoing snide commentary on Selection Sunday), whereas Katz' demeanor seems a better fit for Face The Nation, where his dead-serious, no-humor, don't-you-dare-disagree-with-me commentary seems a better fit for being one of Bob Schieffer's Sunday morning guests discussing the economy or diplomacy in the middle east rather than being involved in any light basketball banter with Rece Davis & Co.
Although we applaud the Selection Committee for making room for a few extra mid-majors who could potentially add to the romance of the Big Dance, we didn't agree with everything done by Chairman Dan Guerrero and his colleagues, including the following;
1) Too much respect for the Big East? Like the Selection Committee, we also had eight Big East teams making the field in our final "Bracketology" projection, but thought they were generally pushed up a bit too high. Villanova (a 2 in the South) and Pitt (a 3 in the West) were, by us at least, each placed at least a line better than either deserved. A 12-loss Louisville (a 9 in the South) was the only Big East rep seeded lower than a 6. We also thought the Committee was a bit sloppy in placing the eight Big East teams, with only one in the Midwest and three in the South. There are also two (West Virginia and Marquette) in the same half of the East Region, when it would have been pretty easy and more uniform to just put two Big East teams in each region, with each of those in a different half. We did it in our brackets, why couldn't the Selection Committee do it as well?
2) Why give Duke the easiest region? Sorry, but we're not too impressed with the imbalance shown in some of the regions, with Duke an unwitting beneficiary. The Blue Devils' path to the Final Four looks a lot smoother than the other top seeds, especially with Robbie Hummel-less Purdue (playing more like a 7 or 8 seed, if that, the past few weeks), fading Villanova, and a dangerous but unproven NCAA entity Baylor (which hasn't posted a win in the Dance since the early 1950s) as the other "protected seeds" in Duke's South Region. Meanwhile, Kentucky (East) has to deal with heavyweight West Virginia, dangerous New Mexico, and no-nonsense Wisconsin as the protected seeds in its region, while Kansas will have to deal with another heavyweight, Ohio State, plus menacing Georgetown and explosive Maryland as the other top four seeds in the Midwest Region. What good was it for the Jayhawks and Wildcats to get the supposed "top two" seeds in the Dance, anyway?
3) Mid-majors vs. mid-majors. If there are enough mid-majors in the field, we'll usually get one or two at most two matchups between them in the first round. This year, we've got three (Butler vs. UTEP in the West, UNLV vs. Northern Iowa in the Midwest, and Richmond vs. Saint Mary's in the South), and a fourth if you want to include Temple vs. Cornell (East). Some cynics were wondering on Selection Sunday night if this wasn't a way for the Committee to simply protect some of the BCS-conference members from being exposed to an upset in the first round (although skeptics of those skeptics can point out that such matchups at least guarantee some mid-majors a chance to advance to the second round).
Other seeding observations...
It's bad to be an 8 or a 9 seed. The chances of any 8 or 9 seeds making it through the sub-regional are always worse than 11, 12, or 13 seeds that at least don't have to worry about facing a top seed until the second weekend. Thus, the 8s (Texas, Cal, UNLV, and Gonzaga) and 9s (Wake Forest, Louisville, Northern Iowa, and Florida State) that almost assuredly will be running into either Kentucky, Kansas, Duke, or Syracuse in the second round are probably not going to need to make any reservations for the Sweet 16. Meanwhile, the likes of 11s (Washington, Old Dominion, San Diego State, and Minnesota), 12s (Cornell, Utah State, New Mexico State, and UTEP), and even 13s (Wofford, Siena, Houston, and Murray State) each have a better chance of lasting until the second weekend than any 8s or 9s.
Best first-round matchup: Richmond vs. Saint Mary's (South Region, Thursday at Providence)...The 7-10 matchups are always intriguing, and this one could be the most interesting on the card, featuring a pair of very underrated mid-majors who could use a win in this game as a launching pad to the Sweet 16 or beyond, with laboring Villanova the likely second-round matchup. Richmond's dynamic backcourt combo of Kevin Anderson & David Gonzalvez spearheads a fascinating Spiders team put together by Pete Carril disciple Chris Mooney, whose troops implement a modified, more aggressive Princeton-style look on the attack end. Meanwhile, Saint Mary's features a legit "big" in 6'11 Omar Samhan (20.9 ppg), deadeye G Mickey McConnell (13.7 ppg and 52% triples), and the Gaels' latest Aussie import, 6-4 frosh Matthew Dellavedova (12.5 ppg), and recorded one of the most eye-opening wins of tournament week when blasting favored Gonzaga, 81-62, in the WCC finale at the Orleans Hotel Arena in Las Vegas..